Thursday Therapeutic Thought - Disorganized Attachment Style

Alright. Our last week on attachment styles! Either you are eagerly awaiting this last installment or you're rolling your eyes and saying, "Thank the Lord she's getting on to something else next week." :)

We've already covered Secure, Ambivalent, and Avoidant attachment styles here, here, and here. Next on the list, and LAST, is the Disorganized Attachment style.

Picture by Leo Reynolds

Unfortunately, this style seems to be a catch-all for the infants who didn't clearly fall into one of the other styles. In Ainsworth's Strange Situation, these were the children who show a lack of attachment behavior altogether. When reunited with their caregivers after being left alone with a stranger, the children displayed dazed behavior, sometimes seeming confused or apprehensive in the presence of their parent. They were avoidant, resistant, or a mix of other behaviors.

Main and Solomon (1986) proposed one factor that might contribute to this attachment style is that of inconsistent behavior on the part of the child's parent. A parent who alternatively comforts the child but also frightens the child could result in this type of attachment confusion where the child isn't sure whether to seek shelter from the parent or seek reassurance from them.

Here's another one of these great breakdowns from About.com:


Clinton and Sibcy describe these persons as having a "shattered self." Here's a great quote that sums up a person living with disorganized attachment style (which isn't a "disorder," folks).

"These sudden shifts from one attachment strategy to another often leave those closest to them confused and frustrated while the 'disorganized' persons themselves feel trapped in a chaotic world, one of rapidly shifting emotions, impulsive behaviors, and muddled relationships" (Attachments, p. 95).

Pople with this attachment style have both a negative self dimension and a negative other dimension. They do not believe they are worthy of love or that they are capable of getting the love they need without being angry or clingy and they do not believe that others are trustworhty, reliable or able to meet their needs. In addition, Clinton and Sibcy add an internal belief in the other dimension that these people believe others are abusive and that they deserve the abuse.
Inevitably, many children who show disorganized attachment come from abusive homes. Abuse comes in many forms, and while not to capitalize on the plights of others, exposing these types of abuse in our characters' backstories might actually help shed some light on it. There is psychological abuse with sarcastic put-downs, harshness, rejection or inconsistency; emotional neglect where the child gets nothing - no physical touch, warmth or connection; physical abuse that can run the gamut from beating and punching to burning and poisoning; sexual abuse/incest - from fondling to full intercourse; exposure to severe marital conflict where the child's sense of security is threatened because a fight between their parents escalates into a scream fest or violence; addictive behavior with drugs or alcohol that usually acconpany other types of abuse (i.e. alcoholic single mom with low self-esteem dragging a child with her into an abusive relationship because it's all she thinks she can get).

So, some characteristics of the disorganized attachment style, or "shattered self," are as follows:

• may commit to a goal during the fervor of an emotional high only to drop the commitment when the high fades
• no internal sense of self-value
• have trouble learning from past experiences and inability to consider future consequences
  
• lack of self-reflection
• has trouble self-soothing and regulating emotions
• can have chronic feelings of depression (known as dysthymia) and are prone to slipping into deep depression
• feels emotions that might be totally out of proportion to the triggering event (can happen during a flashback)
• when faced with new stressors, can experience extreme helplessness rather than focusing on problem solving
• can have self-blame and guilt and "learned helplessness," in which they believe nothing can be done about their situation
• can be overcontrolling as they react to a persistent sense of powerlessness
• relationship distress - 2 extremes: either they are a control freak or a doormat
  
• compelled to repeat their trauma and turmoil by three ways:

1. faulty selection - selecting partners who treat them as their original abusers did
2. distortion - fitting present situations to their past (looking at things through a lens colored by the past)
3. provacation - they behave in such a way as to provoke others to abandon them or behave aggressively toward them
   

Wow. Lots going on with this style. Consequently, this style can be one of the hardest to treat in counseling. Internal views with such an overarching global reach can be hard to reorganize. Hard, but not impossible...with Christ on our sides, anything is possible.

Now that we've conlcuded our attachment study, I hope that you've gotten some great information to apply to your characters. Bookmark these pages if you need to to come back to. Or go and buy the book by Drs. Tim Clinton and Gary Sibcy. Attachments: Why You Love, Feel and Act the Way You Do. (Click on the title for a link to Amazon.) It's an excellent read and a goldmind of information for yourself and for your characters.

Hopefully you've enjoyed this in-depth exploration of attachment styles and it hasn't been too boring or technical. Sorry...sometimes I just get carried away with this stuff!